Electrified Christmas tree ornamentation has heretofore been available in a wide variety of styles, shapes and sizes. Lights, hanging ornaments of all types and tree-top decorations have been a part of holiday decorations throughout the centuries. Typically, the lights are placed on a tree in long strands supplied from a common electrical source. The ornaments are then hung separately at random locations around the tree.
More recently, techniques have been devised for combining the functions of lights and ornaments. An early example of this are the so-called "bubble lights" which became popular in the late '40's and early '50's. Other proposals have been made for adding decoration to conventional light strings for holiday decorating purposes. The Pacini U.S. Pat. No. 3,214,579, for example, discloses a system in which a central trunk line extends up the trunk of the tree and has a plurality of outlets therein into which electrical lights may be separately plugged. These lights may or may not have additional ornamentation.
A form of lighting that has become particularly popular in recent years involves use of the so-called "miniature" lights, wherein a series of small, low voltage lights of the incandescent type are strung in series around the tree. In lighting sets of this type, the electrical supply does not lie adjacent the trunk of the tree, but rather extends around the outer tips of the branches of the tree in the same region in which the lights are resting. Accessories to enhance the appearance and illumination of these miniature lamps have been marketed in the form of stars, leaves or the like which are designed to surround a lamp to be otherwise physically connected thereto.